Jingle Bells Rock

Quite often a familiar song will just keep running through my brain, especially after not hearing it for quite a while. Well, for the last week I have been playing “Jingle Bell Rock” over and over on the old noggin juke box. In case you have forgotten, it was written and sung (at least originally) by Bobby Helms. It’s really a great Christmas holiday song, lasting past Christmas and into a snowy winter. I can’t get it out of my head, especially the bridge.

Here are the lyrics. If you actually know the tune, I defy you not to start singing it in your head.

Jingle Bell Rock

(Bobby Helms)
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells swing and jingle bells ring
Snowing and blowing up bushels of fun
Now the jingle hop has begun
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time
Dancing and prancing in Jingle Bell Square
In the frosty air.
What a bright time, it's the right time
To rock the night away
Jingle bell time is a swell time
To go gliding in a one-horse sleigh
Giddy-up jingle horse, pick up your feet
Jingle around the clock
Mix and a-mingle in the jingling feet
That's the jingle bell,
That's the jingle bell,
That's the jingle bell rock

Sometimes things make me smile

Thank you Mr. President II

I just ran across another terrific column scolding us for becoming “small and mean” in not recognizing the pretty stunning accomplishments President Obama has made since his inauguration.

I know it may sound a bit over-dramatic on my part, but sometimes I truly wonder whether  this country even deserves this President.  I, for one, am proud that he is my President, but I would be a fool to believe that I will agree with him about every issue. 

I was particularly proud listening to his speech given in Norway when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.  That took some courage to point out to an audience of “peaceful people” that there truly is evil in the world and that sometimes it can only be checked by the use of force when all else fails. 

~  Tom

Thank you Mr. President

I hear all these attacks on the President from the right, and much bitching and moaning from the left about his so-called failings, and I get discouraged.  But here is a “must-read” article for those like me who really believe that Barack Obama is something special, who if given the chance will make a lasting difference in this country – all for the better of course.

“Easy Virtue” – A pleasant surprise

Based on favorable reviews, I obtained “Easy Virtue” from Netflix and gave it a whirl last night.

At first I didn’t think I was going to like it that much, but after 10 minutes or so my ear got tuned to the English accents and the plot kicked into place. 

This is an adaptation of a Noel Coward work, and it really delivers as it moves along.  Huge kudos to the main players:  Kristin Scott Thomas as the mother whose high standards are never met, a radiant and quite sexy Jessica Biel as the protagonist interloper new daughter in law, Colin Firth as the WWI damaged father with an understanding heart, and  Ben Barnes as the naive and ultimately shallow son.

I am not that familiar with Jessica Biel, but she really is great in this role. 

The movie is absolutely hilarious in some parts (see the Can Can scene for sure) and yet has a tough sweetness about it.  Trust me on this one.  Just make sure you hang in for the first 10 minutes and you should be fine after that.

~  Ciao, Tom

Nature is always nearby…

Just walked out to get my mail, and was rewarded with a splendid view of the tree in front of our house.  The colors are gorgeous.  I wanted to share it with you, so here it is…

Journalism R.I.P.

I have been bemoaning the slow death of newspapers, “serious” magazines, and journalism for quite some time now.  Things keep getting worse and worse.

I just read a timely article on the subject by Michael Gerson of the Washington Post.  The saddest part is that today I finally concluded that there is nothing that you or I can do about it.  Here are a couple of illustrative paragraphs from Gerson’s article:

But a visit to the Newseum is a reminder that what is passing is not only a business but also a profession -- the journalistic tradition of nonpartisan objectivity. Journalists, God knows, didn't always live up to that tradition. But they generally accepted it, and they felt shamed when their biases or inaccuracies were exposed. The profession had rules about facts and sources and editors who enforced standards. At its best, the profession of journalism has involved a spirit of public service and adventure -- reporting from a bomber during a raid in World War II, or exposing the suffering of Sudan or Appalachia, or rushing to the site of the World Trade Center moments after the buildings fell.

By these standards, the changes we see in the media are also a decline. Most cable news networks have forsaken objectivity entirely and produce little actual news, since makeup for guests is cheaper than reporting. Most Internet sites display an endless hunger to comment and little appetite for verification. Free markets, it turns out, often make poor fact-checkers, instead feeding the fantasies of conspiracy theorists from "birthers" to Sept. 11, 2001, "truthers." Bloggers in repressive countries often show great courage, but few American bloggers have the resources or inclination to report from war zones, famines and genocides.

Frank Rich – way above average

Frank Rich is one of my favorite columnists.   It’s true, not all of his stuff is top-notch, but then Willie Mays didn’t have a life-time average over .400.  In other words, even Willie could not get a hit 4 out of 10 times at bat.  I’d say Frank gets a hit about 7 out of 10 times.  His latest is definitely a long home run.

~  Tom

Back in the saddle!

Hey chilen’s, I was dark a few days because I got a very cool new computer and was transferring programs and data to it from my old computer.

Having gone through this before,( only after a hard drive failure), I was determined to make it easier on myself.  So, I bit the bullet and shelled out $60+ for “PC Mover” (a one-time use piece of software) to migrate my old computer to the new one.  Pretty much everything went perfectly, to my surprise and relief.  However, wouldn’t ya know it, my Microsoft Office programs threw up when I tried to run them, so i had to spend an hour on the help line with them to get them functioning properly.  All is well now.

Anyway, I love my new computer.  It is a Velocity Micro “gaming quality” machine, which I had built to my specifications.  It is super-fast and very, very sexy looking.  It has a plexiglass side panel, which lets you look into its “private parts,” and the three separate cooling fans it uses are all lit up with blue lights.  Here is a picture I took just now showing the window feature:

Oh my, I can hardly keep my pants on! 

So, I’m back and raring to post.  Hope you all are well and happy.

~Tom

Heather and the Mad Men

I probably watch more television than I should, but these days it is hard not to. We have the full-blown Comcast subscription, which gives me a panoply of choices that I can never fulfill. Perhaps on a later post I will list my current weaknesses, but today, I want to laud one show, and then give huge props to the best TV critic in town.

First, the show: Mad Men. Folks, it absolutely does not get any better than this. Last night I watched my DVR’d HD version of the season finale of year three, and I was blown away. If you have not seen this show, rent the DVD’s and catch up. I guarantee that you will not regret the commitment.

But, as much as I want you all to get on the Mad Men bandwagon, the real impetus for this post is to pull all your coats to Heather Havrilesky, by far the best, (and most unknown, underrated) TV critic on today’s scene. If you do not already know about her, by all means check her out here. If you are a fan of Mad Men and have seen the season finale, go here, to see one of the most thoughtful, and cogent, ( with lots of the usual “Heather wit & elan”) reviews you will ever read.

I just love this lady.

Trust me on this one.

~ tom

A deep, lurking unease…

Hi all:

This blog has been dark of late because I was testifying as an expert witness in a trial.  I’m finished with that and ready to address a topic that’s been on my mind ever since I read this book review in the San Francisco Chronicle.  This quote from the review will set the tone for my troubled thoughts:

As Goldhagen argued in his controversial book on the Holocaust, "Hitler's Willing Executioners," the leader's decision is not enough. He must have plenty of willing murderers who take up the eliminationist cause. Goldhagen shows in a wide variety of contexts - from the Germans to the Khmer to the Hutu - that when tyrants give their followers the opportunity to "solve a problem with murder," enormous numbers of volunteers lend themselves to the task. The perpetrators believe their victims deserve it: "Mass murder begins not in abstract structures or inchoate psychological pressures, but in the minds and hearts of men and women."

While the book review is very critical of the author in certain aspects, it was the thought of “followers” who could, if given the real opportunity, kill their fellow citizens, based upon fears and hatreds whipped up by evil leaders, that got me thinking.

I look at what has been going on in this country since Bush II, and particularly since Obama’s election and get chills.  Hundreds of thousands of “followers” are blindly parroting mindless hatred, not even realizing that the very interests they are “defending” are objectively NOT in their best interests.  If you don’t believe that many, many of those people at the Sarah Palin rallies would actually kill their “enemies” if the climate degenerated to the point where killing is sanctioned by leaders, then you need to think again.  I actually heard people yelling out “kill him” (meaning Obama) at those Palin rallies and neither she, nor anyone else condemned such thoughts.

What really has me concerned is that the power that Palin and her crew wield appears to me to be growing or at least solidifying in their followers.  It is becoming more strident and scary each day.  You may say, “well everyone knows that Palin is a brainless nitwit  who could never get elected,” but that brings to mind my story about Ronald Reagan.  It was at the time when Reagan had announced his run for governor of California.  I was in law school at Boalt Hall then and was at a party at Sanford Kadish’s home (Sanford was a great law professor and later dean of the law school).  I distinctly remember standing  on Sanford’s deck with him and a bunch of my fellow law students looking out over the beautiful view of San Francisco across the bay.  We were all derisively laughing about this “second rate actor” who had the audacity to believe that the sophisticated people of California would elect him.  “Not a chance,” we scoffed.  Well, you all know the story.  It ended up with him becoming President in 1980, which marked the beginning of the systematic dismantling of our democratic institutions,  leading up to our present sorry state.

My point is, do not sell this Palin woman short.  Fear her and her followers.  Be vigilant and reactive at all times.  Things are going to get much more ugly and scary.

~  Quaking Tom

Joe Lieberman sucks!

I say let’s kick Joe Lieberman to the curb, right now.  Strip him of his committee chairmanship and cancel all his seniority on other committees.  Kick him out of the Democratic caucus and let him slink over the the Republican caucus where he truly belongs. 

“But,” you say, “we need his vote for the health care bill.”  Wrong.  Consider this from today’s HuffPo:

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid works to cobble together the 60 votes he needs to overcome an expected Republican attempt to block a floor vote on health care, there is still one powerful parliamentary weapon he could draw from his back pocket.

The process known as budget reconciliation only requires a simple majority -- and can not be filibustered -- meaning Reid (D-Nev.) would need only 50 Democrats plus a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Joe Biden to declare victory.

Is he still considering going that way?

"Sure, it's always an option," Reid said after leaving his press conference Monday, when he announced that he'd be pushing forward with a public health insurance option with an opt-out provision that would give states the right not to participate.

You can read the entire HuffPo article here.

A great Saturday

I am an avid Cal fan:  My late father got his doctor’s degree there, my former wife got her masters there, my daughter got her masters there, my current wife graduated from Cal, my son had a full track scholarship at Cal, and I graduated from Boalt Hall, Cal’s law school.  I’ve had football season tickets for years with my son Jesse and my brother Steve.  Say what you might, but there is nothing like hiking the mile or so up the hill from the BART station, through the beautiful campus, and up to my familiar seats on the 5 yard line.  Saturday was a killer day so I took some pictures to share with you.

 

Beginning the walk through campus

The campanile getting its dome spiffed up

Sousaphones on parade

At the gate

About 45 minutes before kick off.

By the way, we beat Washington State 49 – 17.

Annie Leibovitz photo of first family

 

 

Nuff said…

Keillor – inquiring minds

Since I posted the quote from Garrison Keillor, several have asked me from whence it came.  Here is the link.

Wish I woulda said that…

“The wailing and gnashing of teeth that you hear among Republicans is 68 percent envy and 32 percent sour grapes. Here is an idealistic, articulate young president who is enormously popular everywhere in the world except in the states of the Confederacy, and here sit the 28 percent of the American people who still thought Mr. Bush was doing a heckuva job at the end, gnashing their teeth, hoping and praying for something horrible to happen such as an infestation of locusts or the disappearance of the sun, something to make the president look bad, which is not a good place for a political party to be, hoping for the country to slide into chaos. When you bet against America, you are choosing long odds.”

~ Garrison Keillor

We dodged that bullet!

I recently I heard a progressive pundit note that it sure is a good thing that Bush and his corporate pimps were unsuccessful in ramming through their brilliant plan to “privatize” our Social Security system. Can you imagine what it would have been like if a significant portion of the Social Security system had been invested in the stock market and other such volatile investments when the current crash occurred? It’s horrendous enough that millions have lost thousands of dollars in their 401k plans, but if SS had been included, the disaster would have been really heart -breaking. I went back and read some of the articles that were written in 2004, which were very enlightening. For instance consider this excerpt from this terrific informative piece written in December 2004:

Privatization advocates like to stress the appeal of "individual choice" and "personal control," while assuming in their forecasts that everyone's accounts will match the overall performance of the stock market. But studies by Yale economist Robert J. Shiller and others have demonstrated that individual investors are far more likely to do worse than the market generally, even excluding the cost of commissions and administrative expenses. Indeed, research by Princeton University economist Burton Malkiel found that even professional money managers over time significantly underperformed indexes of the entire market.
Moreover, a number of surveys show that most people lack the knowledge to make even basic decisions about investing. For example, a Securities and Exchange Commission report synthesizing surveys of investors found that only 14 percent knew the difference between a growth stock and an income stock, and just 38 percent understood that when interest rates rise, bond prices go down. Almost half of all investors believed incorrectly that diversification guarantees that their portfolio won't suffer if the market drops and 40 percent thought that a mutual fund's operating costs have no impact on the returns they receive.
While predictions vary significantly about how investment markets will perform in the decades ahead, it's safe to say that any growth in individual accounts under privatization will be significantly lower than what the overall markets achieve.

See, it would have been bad enough even without the crash.

Whatever you may think of Barrack, thank God, fate, karma or whatever that Obama is not Bush! How did we survive that eight years of illegitimate governance anyway?

~ tom

I could not agree “Moore”

This is a great quote from Michael Moore.  It echoes my feelings and those of a lot of my liberal but sane friends. 

All I ask of those who voted for Obama is to not pile on him too quickly. Yes, make your voice heard (his phone number is 202-456-1414). But don't abandon the best hope we've had in our lifetime for change. And for God's sake, don't head to bummerville if he says or does something we don't like. Do you ever see Republicans behave that way? I mean, the Right had 20 years of Republican presidents and they still couldn't get prayer in the public schools, or outlaw abortion, or initiate a flat tax or put our Social Security into the stock market. They did a lot of damage, no doubt about that, but on the key issues that the Christian Right fought for, they came up nearly empty handed. No wonder they've been driven crazy lately. They'll never have it as good again as they've had it since Reagan took office.

But -- do you ever see them looking all gloomy and defeated? No! They keep on fighting! Every day. Our side? At the first sign of wavering, we just pack up our toys and go home.

So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people elsewhere are celebrating -- that America now has a sane and smart man in the White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for his two daughters.

Read the whole thing here.

Olbermann tops himself

I record Keith Olbermann’s show every day and watch it later to avoid the commercials.  Tonight, Keith devoted the entire show to one of his special comments, this one on the health care crisis.  I was truly moved and totally riveted.  The whole thing is already up on Daily Kos, so check it out.  I agree with the Kos contributor’s prefatory blurb:

Keith Olbermann has done some great stuff in the past, but he is burning the house down with this extended Special Comment on Healthcare Reform. It is tragic, it is raw; the intense, personal emotional honesty this newscaster shares with his viewers is nothing short of riveting. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is something you are going to want to watch from heart rending start to sobering finish.

Loving Grayson

Alan Grayson is my current number one hero.  Apparently, his courage is being recognized world-wide.  Check this out from the Brits.

Glee – another guilty pleasure

OK, I’ll admit it.  -- I’m totally hooked on the new TV series, “Glee.”  It is hard to explain exactly what the show is all about.  It takes place at a high school where the once-famous glee club has fallen far from grace.  An alumni, now faculty member (Will Schuester, payed by Matthew Morrison)  who was a member of the club in its heyday takes it over.  He faces opposition from the hilariously played (Jane Lynch) head of the snobby cheer leader squad, and draconian budget restrictions.  And the kids in the glee club are winsome.  Add to that Will’s semi-crazy wife who is faking a pregnancy to keep him in the marriage and a fellow faculty member who has a big crush on Will, and you have a pretty good sit-com setup.  But that is not what makes the show worth watching.  The musical numbers are what makes this show work for me.  They are so superb that I wonder whether they can keep up such a high level into future episodes.  Last week was simply glorious, because through a dubious plot twist they were able to work  Kristin Chenoweth into the  show.  I was first exposed to her at the end of the Westwing series where she played a strictly dramatic role to great effect.  At the time, my wife commented that she was also an accomplished singer and dancer, which at the time I sort of stored away in my brain.  Anyway, she has several fabulous musical/dance numbers in the last episode that really blew me away.  She is great!

Anyway, check out Glee.  Sure, like all musicals (with the exception of Cabaret) it’s kind of cheesy and artificial, but I guarantee that you will have a smile on your face after every episode.

A quote for today

I, and the people I value have had much beauty revealed to us.

I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn’t of much value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them.

~ Boris Pasternak

Wonders really do never cease

I was Stumbling around on the Internet this morning and came across this extraordinary short video.  It is just a little under 10 minutes, so make some quality time to watch it. 

The site that it appears on, Visual Things, looks like it offers a lot of high-quality content.  I’m definitely bookmarking it for further exploration.

Bill Maher has it right…

Sometimes I read something that just rings of simple truth. Here is a good example.

This is one of the best parts:

We weren't always like this. Inert. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law and 11 months later seniors were receiving benefits. During World War II, virtually overnight FDR had auto companies making tanks and planes only. In one eight year period, America went from JFK's ridiculous dream of landing a man on the moon, to actually landing a man on the moon.

Each day I wonder how things would be if we had a parliamentary system where bozos are turned out on their collective ears if things don’t get accomplished in a reasonable, but rapid manner.

~ Tom

Some very nice Freddie & accompanying lore.

I’m up at our place at Tahoe-Donner this weekend. About to head down the mountain in an hour or so but I thought I would throw in this post before I leave.

Checked my email this morning and found that my friend John Burke had sent me and others a link to a terrific performance by Freddie Hubbard.

That got me thinking…

Freddie won a Grammy for “First Light,” a copy of which I had on LP and played a lot. I was going to look it up for this post just to make sure that it had indeed won a Grammy, but I started looking in the 80’s and could not find it. It turns out Freddie made the record in 1971, the year I bought it. Man did that make me feel old.

Anyway, about the early 90’s I realized that I hadn’t heard anything from or about Freddie in quite some time. I feared he had died and I had not gotten the news. The Internet was in its infancy so I couldn’t do the quick on-line research we all do these days. Finally, I happened to read a magazine article that indicated that Freddie had cut his lip and it had become infected, preventing him from playing his trumpet/flugelhorn at all.

I confirmed this just now on his Wikipedia page:

Following a long setback of health problems and a serious lip injury in 1992 where he ruptured his upper lip and subsequently developed an infection, Hubbard was again playing and recording occasionally, even if not at the high level that he set for himself during his earlier career.

Anyway, take a hike back to ‘82 or ‘83 and enjoy this cool performance that my friend John was kind enough to send our way.

Patrick Swayze, R.I.P.

Dang, I was truly saddened to just learn of Patrick Swayze’s passing.  I unabashedly admit that he was one of my “guilty pleasure” actors.  Sure, he didn’t win any academy awards, but I could not, and still cannot, resist his movies such as Dirty Dancing (just a sweet movie), Roadhouse (a terrific “ass-kicker” with Ben Gazzara as a fabulous villain), and my favorite of all the guilty pleasures, Point Break (tell me a better flick to sit back and watch with a bowl of popcorn).   While I really like Ghost, it was a tiny bit too serious/sappy to make my guilty pleasures list.

If you haven’t seen Point Break, I say dig it now in honor of Swayze – or watch it again in tribute.  The flick has absolutely some of the best stunt stuff you will see packed into one movie (surfing and sky diving scenes are epic), with Swayze at the height of his buff, athletic prime playing a yin/yang bad/good guy.  Keanu Reeves is the supposed star, but it is Swayze’s movie.  Gary Busey steals a few scenes and Lori Petty is a sweetheart in her role.  Check it out…

And off-screen Swayze was a stand up guy:

 Off-screen, he was an avid conservationist who was moved by his time in Africa to shine a light on "man's greed and absolute unwillingness to operate according to Mother Nature's laws," he told the AP in 2004.

Swayze was married since 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took lessons with his mother; they met when he was 19 and she was 15. A licensed pilot, Niemi would fly her husband from Los Angeles to Northern California for treatment at Stanford University Medical Center, People magazine reported in a cover story.

I’m gonna miss him.

The adult in the room…

I’m sure all of us Obama supporters agree that his speech was superb.   While it admirably covered all the “wonky” stuff that needed to be discussed, I was more interested in the motif running through the speech that was  brought to a head in the final 10 minutes.

A moral issue defining our national character.  He waited until the end to expostulate this dictate, which made it all the more powerful.  Playing into his hands were the dour elected Republicans,  making their distain childishly evident, including an outright verbal attack calling the President a liar.  I may be wrong, but I believe there are a lot of citizens who truly long for a moral compass in their lives.

A quick story:  When I was a very, very young lad about 7 or so, during summer vacation, I was alone at my school while construction was going on.  For the first time in my life, from the construction crew,  I heard street profanity, which frankly exhilarated and empowered me, even though something deep inside signaled me that it was not universally accepted.  Anyway, the following day, I was back, only this time a new crew was on the scene.  I remember shouting out the previous day’s “new cool words’ thinking I would get approval  (remember, I’m 7!).  I’ll never forget, this big, gentle guy who was the crew chief of the new crew registered sheer repulsion at my words and told me that I should never, ever say them, especially in public.  (Looking back on this, I’m thankful I did not try out my potty mouth on my mom or dad!).  Anyway, I hope you get the point.  These Republicans are like 7-year-0lds who think that they can disrespect the office of the President without consequences.  Because of the President’s powerful speech and their total lack of respect for him and his speech, it is clear that they need a big, gentle crew chief to let them know that good kids don’t go around shouting obscene lies and trying to subjugate the country’s good for political gain.  So far they have no such crew chief advising them, even assuming they would listen were such a person extant.  Unfortunately for them, most of the country is finally beginning to see this clearly.

Told ya so…

The President’s speech last night was even more satisfying  than I predicted. 

Please refer to my blog entry of  August 20. 

I want you all to think seriously about what would have happened had the President had made a similar speech in late July or early August.  (When a lot of supporters were getting their undies in a bunch over his supposed wuzzing out).  It would have given the other side all of August and up until now to bang away on him.  The result would have been crippling, if not disastrous. 

I trusted him, being confident enough to write the above-referenced post, even knowing that I could later look like a fool if the President did not “come through” on his own schedule. 

Well, he did come through, exceeding my expectations.  (More on that in a coming post.)  The man’s timing is impeccable.  Let me just include again the poster that we should all keep on our walls …

This and that …

I’ve been pretty busy over the last week.  So, all I can offer is some random thoughts:

• Season tickets for many years for University of California football, with my brother Steve and son Jesse.  Season opener was Saturday vs. Maryland.  Cal 52 – Maryland 13!  There is nothing like a college game with 70,000 fans to make you feel young and happy.
• Running a lot these days with MP3 player on shuffle.  Just realized how good the Dixie Chicks really are after they popped up a few times in the queue.  Also was great to hear some old “Joshua Tree” U2 stuff, in particular “In God’s Country.”
• Saw “I Love You, Man” on DVD last night.  A very nice “Bro-mance.”  The scenes with Peter (Paul Rudd) and Sydney (Jason Segel) in the “Man Cave” were especially hilarious for me, having been there myself in one form or another back in my younger days. 
• Still reeling from the season finale of “Rescue Me.”  That was a true stunner.
• Just received the Criterion Collection, Eclipse Series 6 special edition of “Carlos Saura’s Flamenco Trilogy,” which consists of three discs:  “Blood Wedding,” “Carmen,” and “El Amor Brujo.”  “Carmen” is one of my favorite movies, and probably one of the most sensual and erotic films one could ever see.  The flamenco dancing is arresting, and the likewise the music.  I had been moaning about the fact that Carmen was only available on VCR tape and then I found out about this collection, which I got on Amazon for less then fifty bucks.  I can hardly wait to watch these great movies again, especially Carmen.  

Peace, out.

~tom

A post about a poster

Check out this totally cool poster by John Mavroudis.  It serves its purpose admirably – it took a whole lot of history to get the country in the posture necessary to elect a black president.  I’ll admit it, I did not believe I would see it happen in my lifetime.  Of course, now that the reality has set in, the right wing is going absolutely bonkers, and the left wing is showing its genetic inability to accept compromise when the only other choice is defeat of an admirable initial goal. 

In all that I’ve read about Teddy Kennedy in the last few days, the universal assessment was that he would accept the compromise in order to a) get something rather than nothing, and b) keep the admirable initial goal alive and on the horizon for another fight on another day.

The President understands this and is acting accordingly for the benefit of all of us.

~  tom

Bring on the filibuster!

From Frank Rich’s column in today’s NY Times:

The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.

I couldn’t agree more.  I would love make these bloviating, lying, distorting, crass, politically-motivated, Obama-hating, Republicans stand up for days (make it weeks if necessary) and filibuster a healthcare reform bill.  As the time passes they will look less and less like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and more and more like Joe McCarthy when Joseph Welch confronted him:

“Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild...Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Obama the fox?

You know, I could be completely wrong, but I really believe that President Obama is executing a long-standing plan with respect to his handling of the health care brouhaha. Let me give you an analogy from my world:

In the old days, when I began practice as a young lawyer, all trials were assigned out of the “master calendar department” by the Presiding Judge. Sometimes you would “get out to trial,” but often there would be no courts available so your case would “trail” or be continued to a date weeks away. I learned from a mentor that you NEVER gave the opposing counsel your trial brief unless you actually got assigned to a department and the case started. At that point you would lay your trial brief on the other side. If you did give the opposing counsel your trial brief in master calendar and then your case got trailed, or worse, continued, the other guy would have lots of time to construct all sorts of opposition, including false or misleading arguments that would take you lots of time and energy to shoot down. Even today, when we don’t have a master calendar system, I never give the other side anything until the very last minute before the statutory or procedural deadline. Why give them any more time to beat you up than you need to?

Could it be that the President is sitting back and letting the other side “file their trial brief” in public, letting them get it all out, getting them backed into their loony corner before he files his trial brief? If he would have gotten overly specific or tried to respond point-by-point to the lies and distortions, they would have weeks to attack those responses, which he would then have to react to, and so on. Imagine he had tried that approach on the Jeremiah Wright matter in the campaign. Instead, he let the criticism go on until he was sure the other side had” filed their trial brief,” then, and only then, he made his famous “race” speech. (Which I believe will be studied long after we and Barack are gone).

Obama and the men and women who got him elected are just too smart to not have something up their sleeve, but you can be dam sure they are not going to pull it out of the sleeve until the are sure that

• The other side has filed its trial brief
• The timing is right to get full benefit from filing their trial brief , and the least amount of time is left for the other side to react.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. What will Barack’s “trial brief" be? A major speech like the race speech where he lays out the shame and cost of having 50 million of our fellow citizen uninsured, and the undeniable benefit to all but a few very rich people? An orchestrated blitz using popular and articulate people like Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, etc.? Forcing the opposing Senators to actually filibuster – let’s see them standing up for days or even weeks obstructing a bill whose benefit all will be able to see?

I don’t know, but I am waiting

A couple of shout-outs

Watchmen: About a week ago Eileen and I caught “Watchmen” on DVD on our 50” plasma. I was really blown away. I knew nothing of the story and background of Watchmen, and I was not expecting anything extraordinary. The movie was just great. Sure, it’s long, but the time just flew by for me. (I know it must have been great because Eileen stayed awake and riveted for the whole shebang). Also, some may say that the violence was a bit too graphic and gory, but I didn’t think so – I squirmed when I was meant to squirm. (Again, the Eileen test: she stayed through the whole thing, whereas with anything remotely resembling a slasher movie, she is gone). It would take me more time than I care to spend describing why I liked Watchmen so much, so I won’t even try. Suffice it to say, that I am still thinking about it even now. Oh, I loved the anatomically correct Dr. Manhattan!

Rave reviews of Watchmen: Roger | Mick

Callie Thorne: We are big fans of “Rescue Me.” Yeah, some of it is over the top, but that’s because Denis Leary is willing to take chances both as a writer/producer, and as an actor. Anyway, a couple of episodes ago, there was a scene where Tommy (Leary) comes over to Sheila’s (Callie Thorne) to fix her sink. (Not the most recent episode where she orders him to come over to install her TV – the one before that). Anyway, I’m watching this scene between the two of them and I suddenly realized how amazingly great Callie Thorne’s acting was in the scene. It was so real that I forgot I was watching someone act. It wasn’t just her delivering her lines with perfection and nuance, but also the way she used her face and body in pauses between her lines, or more importantly when Tommy was speaking to her, but the camera was still on her. I have several friends who are actors and they all say that “listening” is a much harder job than “talking.” Try testing this sometime: Instead of focusing on the “talker” when you are watching a movie or TV, watch the character who is supposed to be listening, and you will often see the most wooden, frozen, lifeless/or obviously forced performance imaginable. Anyway, if you get out a chance, check out Callie in this scene and you’ll see what I mean. She is just fabulous.

Kerouac goodies!

Because San Francisco was Jack Kerouac’s stomping ground, we get a lot of articles in the S.F. Chronicle that the rest of the country probably never sees.  Today, in the “Datebook” section of the Chron, there is a big article, filled with lots of goodies.  So, I’m pullin’ your coats to it.

Be sure you check out:

• The images by clicking “view more images.”
• “Six facts you might not know” at the very end of the article.

Begala talks me down

After seeing the cynical, angry, and downright nasty antics of the right-wing lemmings at various town hall meetings, I was really discouraged.  But then I read a couple of good columns today that made me get my chin up again. 

One, by the venerable David Broder, has as its theme the idea that these wingnut antics are pissing off a whole lot of people, but that fact never gets reported on by MSM.  Here is his article.

The second column is by Paul Begala, and it is quite brilliant.  Here is a part that I particularly like:

Progressive politics is, in my view, a movement, not a monument. We cannot achieve perfection in this life, and if that is our goal we will always be frustrated. The right has far more modest goals: At every turn, its members seek to advance their power and protect privilege. I've never seen the Republican right oppose a tax cut for the rich because it wasn't generous enough; I've never seen them oppose a set of loopholes for corporate lobbyists because one industry or another wasn't included. The left, on the other hand, too often prefers a glorious defeat to an incremental victory.

Begala also mans up and wears the hair shirt over his role in the 1993/1994 Clinton health insurance reform debacle.

I’m still hoping like hell that we can get a health care bill that contains a “public option” but if the Repulicant’s and the Blue Dogs kill it, let’s get every other damn thing we can, such as no “pre-existing condition” disqualifications, no dropping people when they get sick, an insurance exchange even without a public option (similar to what Massachusetts has), and so on. 

<sigh>

Steven Pearlstein weighs in on Repub. liars

I have been trying not to be too depressed and angry over the right-wing assault on the health care bill, and in a larger arena upon the President and all he stands for.  It’s hard.  These people are at best unpatriotic and at worst just plain evil. 

Well, I didn’t feel so much  like the Lone Ranger after I heard Stephanie Miller today reading from this column by Steven Pearlstein, hardly a flaming liberal.  This is really a terrific piece, which everyone should be required to read.

Just goes to show that even a 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner can get his undies in a bunch.

American Idiots

I have just about had it with these people who are showing up at the town hall meetings of Democrats and causing havoc, if not violence.  I’m a big defender of first amendment free speech, but these people are clearly hollering “fire” in the proverbial crowded theater. 

I don’t mean to be patronizing, but under any stretch of my imagination these people are idiots.   This was clearly illustrated when a beleaguered host-congressman, asked people who were on Medicare to raise their hands and well over half of the mouth-breathers raised their hands! 

This brings me to my purpose here:  check out the new book by Charles Pierce, “Idiot America.”  I have pasted in below the link to this book on the Amazon site.

  http://tinyurl.com/msfhfc

This link also includes a nice interview with the author, which you can read even if you don’t buy his book.  Here is a particular apropos excerpt from that interview,  which winds its way back to the  town hall chaos mentioned at the outset of this post:

Question: What is the difference between stupidity and glorifying ignorance?
Charles P. Pierce: Stupidity is as stupidity does, to quote a uniquely stupid movie. It has been with us always and always will be. But we moved into an era in which stupidity was celebrated if it managed to sell itself well, if it succeeded, if it made people money. That is “glorifying ignorance.” We moved into an era in which the reflexive instincts of the Gut were celebrated at the expense of reasoned, informed opinion. To this day, we have a political party—the Republicans—who, because it embraced a “movement of Conservatism” that celebrated anti-intellectualism is now incapable of conducting itself in any other way. That has profound political and cultural consequences, and the truly foul part about it was that so many people engaged in it knowing full well they were peddling poison.

Amen.

Stimulus, bailouts, and the like explained

My friend Josh Feldman pulled my coat to this.  I’m still laffin’

Frank Rich’s latest

Frank Rich is always superb, but this effort has got to be one of his best.  Truth rings out in every last sentence.

Well well, a well-written article

This is the stuff that I just lap up, having taught writing for many years, made my living writing in the legal world, and having a father who corrected my grammar whilst I was in the crib.  I have to admit, this is one I had not encountered before.  It’s a fun one to boot.

Triple play – no relatives allowed

I don’t quite know how I vibed on this the other day, but I was trying to remember the name of Mary Louise Parker (whom I just love) and I kept thinking of Sarah Jessica Parker, and then got myself to believing (in my old age) that Mary Louise was not a “Parker” and that I was totally confused. This then lead me to remember Posey Parker (absolutely great in “Best of Show” ). By then I was reeling and I had to run to the computer and look up each one to make sure the they all were really “Parker.” Indeed they are, and they are all unrelated.

Since then I have been racking my brain to come up with another example of three unrelated actors (male or female) with the same last name, who are all unrelated. No luck so far. Can you think of any?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Since original posting I have been corrected. It's "Parker Posey." See comments.

Nature rules

I am up at our place at Tahoe/Donner this weekend. On Friday, while taking the dog for a walk in the woods right behind our place, I noticed that one of the big pine trees had a big piece torn out of it, with other lacerations below that down the trunk. There were also pieces of the tree strewn below and a large piece hanging in an adjacent tree. I couldn’t figure out what happened.

On Saturday I was speaking with our neighbor, Norm, who lives up here full-time. His place is even closer to the tree than ours (only about 50 feet or so). He told me that about a week ago there had been a huge thunder storm right over our houses, and that lightning was striking in bolts in the darkness. He was in his house and saw a huge bolt strike the tree of which I am speaking in this post. He said the whole thing really humbled him. I went out this morning and took some pictures. Double-click on the image to enlarge it.

This is a close-up of the tree. You can see a large chunk of it hanging in the two trees to the right of the victim.

A long shot. Norms place is out of the picture just to the right. Another neighbor’s place is in the right foreground.

The moral? Don’t ever take nature for granted.

Health insurance controversy…

A great article by Jonathan Alter.  (With tongue firmly in cheek).

Thoughts on movie accents

Last night I saw “Defiance” on DVD. It’s a pretty good movie that depicts Jewish brothers in Belorussia who lead a group of Jews to survival in the deep forests throughout WWII. Not only do they have to face the Nazi Germans, but also Russian local police who have gone to the dark side and are getting 500 rubles for every Jew they bring in.

Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber (both fine actors) have lead roles, but are relegated to speaking in cheesy Russian accents. I got to thinking about this whole accent issue and here is my take on it:

Assume that the movie is an English language film. Assume that any given character (not the actor) is a native speaker in “X” language (not English).

• If the actor playing the character is actually speaking his character’s native language on screen, use sub-titles. (They actually did some of this with Craig and Schreiber speaking Russian and using sub-titles, which was cool with me.)
• If the actor playing the character is speaking actual English in the movie, then the actor must use an accent. Example: if a Japanese airline pilot is speaking with the control tower in English, the actor must use a Japanese accent. If the accent is even halfway decent it will not sound cheesy because your mind is seeing a Japanese dude trying to speak English, so if the actor mangles the accent a bit, who cares.
• If the actor playing the character is speaking English, but his character is actually speaking “X” in the movie, forget the accent and just let actor speak English. Jeez, we all know that the characters Craig and Schreiber are portraying are speaking Russian and not English with a cheesy accent, so lose the accent please.

This came up recently concerning Valkyrie, which I enjoyed much more than I thought I would. I realized that one of the main reasons was the Tom Cruise did not even try to do a cheesy German accent, which would have driven me up the wall and totally distracted from the move. Here is what he had to say in an interview:

On the lack of German accents in the film:
"You know, we spent a lot of time going back and forth over that. All of a sudden you're listening to people trying to put on accents and Bryan finally said, 'No, no, no.' Just tell the story. We don't want to do an accent movie, just try and find something neutral that won't distract from the story and the characters."

I had absolutely no trouble realizing that all the characters were actually speaking German, and I was spared the cheesy accents.

Your thoughts?

Toles has it nailed

Nothing But the Truth

Last night I watched “Nothing But the Truth” on DVD.  I enjoyed it much more than I had anticipated.  It is an above-average political thriller, which is enhanced by its obvious parallels to the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent in the “real world.”

The cast is outstanding, with Kate Beckinsale playing the lead as a reporter who refuses to give up her source and ends up going to jail and suffering terrible collateral losses as a result.  Vera Farmiga (one of my favorite underrated actors) is terrific as the outed agent.  A big surprise was Matt Dillon, who plays the heartless special prosecutor – he just keeps getting better and more credible as he ages.  Also turning in fine performances were Alan Alda as the famous civil rights lawyer, Angela Bassett as the editor, and Noah Wyle as the attorney for the newspaper.

The script is excellent, and does not contain the “holes” that some political thriller’s have – everything seems perfectly believable. 

A very nice DVD rental for sure.  I recommend it. 

~  Tom

Props for Sheldon Whitehouse

Lately I have been hearing of lot of interviews of, and comments by, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. I had never heard of this guy before, but I love to listen to him now that I have discovered him. He is so well spoken and articulate, but his best attribute is to make his point directly, without having to lay down miles of bullshit, equivocation, or “weather vaning.” I am very impressed. So, I was not surprised today to hear him call out the hypocrites of the right on their bogus claim that Sotomayor was an “activist” judge and that the left wants to pack the Supreme Court with “activist” judges who will not follow the constitution. He points out who the real activist judges are! This is some really courageous, strong stuff. Check it out.

Also making similar comments were Dianne Feinstein and Russ Feingold, but not quite as good as the “Whitehouse Edition.”

~ tom

The fountain of youth?

Today, I was driving around with my dog doing various errands and I turned on the local FM 24/7 jazz station, KCSM.  I realized that I had not been listening to any jazz for a while, but I immediately got right into it.  It turned out to be an epic set, mostly stuff I had never heard before.  Especially fantastic was a piece by the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Band – the cats were cookin’ and blowing in a sort of controlled mania.  Very, very hot.

But the real point of this post is to note that as I was driving around on a gorgeous summer day, listening to great jazz, I felt like I was in my twenties again.  I can get flashbacks and contact highs from old rock and pop songs, but today confirmed that only jazz can transport me back in time to the point where my whole being takes the ride.  I could almost smell the funky, exciting odor of the small club at which I saw Trane in SF at age 20 on a fake ID.  I was literally only about 8 feet from him, and I’m still recovering to this day.  Reminds me of the Grammys that year when Carlos Santana won about a zillion categories -- at one point he stopped, got real serious and said to the watching world,  “Listen to John Coltrane every day.”  Think I’m gonna try that.

~  tom

Palin – WTF?!

I’m up here at the Tahoe place.  Twitter is all “a-twitter” over the breaking news that Sarah Palin is not going to run again for governor AND that she is resigning office as of July 26th.  I can hardly wait for the “real scoop.”  Any guesses?

Testing Windows “Live Writer”

I was just looking at the programs listed at “Top 10 Freeware Software Nobody Knows About - But Should” and ended up downloading #7, “Windows Live Writer,” which I am using to draft this post.  This thing is wonderful!  It has all the tools that come with Blogspot, and also a few more, which I will try out soon.  Also, it’s much easier to import photos,

and it is a full featured Word Processor, with lots of different fonts to choose from. 

And I	Can
Even set up	Tables!

Oh, and it even lets me inset maps.  The push pin is where I live by the SF Bay.

This is way cool.

More on single-payer health care

To increase your chops in debating this issue, here is another resource.

Turning over the rock...

I have been just going crazy over the right wing trying to characterize the Obama administration as being a "Fascist" regime -- "socialist" was bad enough, but this takes the cake.

However, I realized that my thinking and current knowledge on the subject of fascism had dreadfully eroded since my "political science major" days as an undergrad. So I decided to restore/update my chops on this subject.

In pursuing that quest, I found the following site, which explains the subject perfectly. Applied to Obama - forget it! Applied to eight years of Bush - Yep.

Making me smile

Check it out.

I just love the little guy who can barely get his nose above ground-zero of his axe.

Get on board everyone!

Today, I heard that Senator Feinstein was making public statements to the effect that a health care bill with a "public option" will not make it through the Senate. If this is true it is bullshit. Accordingly, I just composed and emailed the following to MY Senator:

Dear Senator Feinstein:

I have been a long-time supporter of yours going back to seeing how magnificently you handled the horror of the assassination of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone.

I am writing because I am very concerned to have heard that you are making public statements saying that the "public option" for health care cannot get enough support to pass through the Senate. This, in spite of the fact that polling shows the 72% of Americans favor it, and a majority says they would accept higher taxes to pay for it.

I have no idea how much money you are receiving from the health insurance industry, or how much you are being influenced by their lobbyists, but I would like to believe that the answer is "zero" on all counts.

You MUST show some courage now and support a robust public option that will compete with the insurance companies, but more importantly, will also provide decent health care to the almost 50 million who have no coverage at all. In fact, with your seniority, prestige, and power, it is your duty to step up to the plate and lead the charge.

I just turned 65 and I am now (as are you) in a single-payer system: Medicare in my case, and an even better system in your case. It seems to work really well, far better than the Blue Cross program I was in before. But my children and grandchildren cannot wait until they are 65! They need (and deserve as a fundamental right) a public option. And, it must be a true public option that is designed to compete head-on with the insurance companies as opposed to some watered-down "co-op" abomination.

Senator, PLEASE maintain my long-standing faith in your courage and wisdom. Rise to the occasion without fear of the insurance companies. Serve us all well at this critical time.

Your long-time constituent,

Tom Wilson

I encourage anyone reading this to send a similar email to his or her own Senators and Congress Persons. If you send it "as is" please say something like, "My friend, Tom Wilson, sent this to Senator Feinstein, and I totally agree with him" or words to that effect. Or, you can edit it to reflect your own thoughts more accurately. At this point we all know that we will never be able to get a "single-payer" bill through, but if we can at least get a single-payer public option passed, it will be the proverbial "foot-in-the-door" for a true single-payer system. (This is why the insurance company's are fighting the public option tooth and nail).

I'm in California where all my representatives are on board, except for Sen. Feinstein, so it's not so critical for me, and I've just done my part on that front. But for those of you in States where your representatives are not on board or are waffling, please take action of some sort to let them know that you DEMAND a bill that has a robust public option component.

Rant over,

Tom

Geography lesson?

Here is a little known fact: The Appalachian Trial actually winds its way through Argentina! See the following for verification of this strange geological anomaly.

Jing - How can you pass it up?

Because of the work I do, I need a top-notch, full featured screen capture program. I use "Snagit," which is the best I have found. However, it turns out that the creators of Snagit are marketing a FREE screen capture program for both PC and Mac: Jing. Here is how they explain it:

"If Snagit were a fancy SLR camera, Jing would be one of those compact point-and-shoot deals."

Anyway, if you need a great free screen capture program, download Jing here.

How can you pass it up?

Revolutionary Road & Gran Torino

I saw "Revolutionary Road" on DVD last night. What a great movie. It is a tough watch, but so worth it. The script was super, music perfectly composed and utilized, cinematography beautiful, and direction flawless. But the actors, top to bottom, were fabulous. DiCaprio and Winslet were amazing, and Michael Shannon as the "oh-so-wise-yet-fucking-crazy guy" certainly stole the scenes he was in, particularly the last one. I thought the movie was going to be good, but it was far better than I imagined. I went back and read the review by Mick LaSalle, the critic for our SF Chronicle, whose opinions and tastes usually track with mine; I had forgotten that he pegged the movie as his pick for the best film of 2008. Here is his review.

I also watched "Gran Torino," and was underwhelmed to say the least -- not one of Clint's better efforts. I can't pick out one particular fault. Let's just say that it was Clint trying to combine the "deep-down nice guy in spite of himself" (like Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets") with a geriatric Dirty Harry, topped off with the "aliens in America" theme of a host of movies depicting Mexicans/Arabs/Africans/ or other "foreigners" trying to assimilate in the good old USA. Better than the orangutan movies Clint made, but not by much.

Just sayin' ....

Waning Chops

Today, I am going to broach a delicate subject that cuts across all artistic disciplines: "waning chops." In more conventional speak: the deterioration of one's artistic skills to the point where his/her body of work is no longer being enhanced.
For this essay, I am only going to focus on music and musicians, but I believe the concepts migrate to other "arts" such as writing and "fine arts."

The best way to introduce this subject is to recount two personal experiences:

1. Oscar Peterson: I, and universally every friend and jazz fan I know, had nothing but praise to shed on this special soul. Let's face it, with the huge hands, and a huge, innovative jazz mind to go along with them, he was "Oscar" -- nuff said.

I saw him in person over the years, and always came away feeling blessed, having heard live what I heard on his records, only better, because it was live, and it was Oscar, still adding to his legacy.

But, the last time I heard him, at the famed Yoshi's right down the road in Oakland, I knew it would soon be over. I have perfect pitch (sometimes I hate it) and a legitimate critical ear, and Oscar was not making it that night. I have no doubt that he was still hearing it in his magnificent mind, but his brain-to-fingers connection was no longer fully functional. The runs were ragged, syncopation was slightly off, and even ballads lacked the subtle fire that Oscar had always delivered before. However, the gratifying aspect was that the savvy segment of the Yoshi's audience also knew it, and I could feel that the applause took on a different tenor than in times before -- respect rather than fervor.

A few months later, Oscar was dead.

2. Elvin Jones: Again Yoshi's. I heard him about 18 months before he contracted cancer and began dying. It was truly one of the great moments of jazz I had heard. He was into his late years, but still just drumming as he always had -- you couldn't take your eyes off him, or suppress a jazz-giggle over some of the riffs he was still inventing (even then) in his "old age." I was amazed and inspired.

Later, about a month before he died, I went to see him again at Yoshi's: That was the most painful experience I have EVER had at music gig of any sort. Before the set started, Elvin's wife came on stage and told the audience that he was dying and had only about a month or so of life left, but that he still wanted to play. This one really got me, because literally less than two years before, this "old man" had been kicking ass. As in the case of Oscar (above) I know that Elvin still heard it all in his head, but his body just failed him. It was wrenching, yet touching, to see. And the respect paid to him by the guys who were playing behind him was also poignant -- they knew his drumming was pretty horrible, but they played their asses off to cover him in every way possible. I just cried.

So, this raises the question for all of us when judging our chosen art appreciation: Is our hero just going down a different path (often pissing us off by doing so), or is he beginning to "lose his chops? On this subject here is a cool aside: You also have to take into consideration the "tools of the artistic trade." A vocalist (Tony Bennett ripping up Monterey Jazz Festival at age 80+) can keep his chops much longer than a trombonist -- just moving that slide the distances required will challenge a 20 year old, let alone a 70+ player.

There are individuals in this debate that constantly surprise and befuddle me. Number one has to be Dylan. Every time I think he has lost his chops, he turns around and takes a hunk of flesh out of me. Miles was that way too.

But in the end, there will come a time for all great artists when they lose their chops. Having witnessed this occurrence more and more as I age myself, I have imposed a promise upon myself NOT to praise a performance when the chops have faded. For instance, after that last Oscar performance I mention above, some younger people I was with who had never heard Oscar before were raving (a lot because they felt they were expected to [and I can't blame them, having been there in my 20's trying to impress an older person whom I admired]) and I realized at that moment that I had to be honest, yet not patronizing or dismissive. So, I simply said that I thought Oscar's genius had been on display, but that he no longer could translate it to his axe as he had been able to do in past times. And I referred them to one of my favorite Oscar solos from the great album he did with Milt Jackson in the 60's: Standing Tall, in particular "On Green Dolphin Street." [Here it is for those who have never heard it. I think this is one of THE greatest Oscar solos ever, and he did it with one hand tied behind his back, so to speak.]

Since then, I have always tried to be honest. If an aging "great" puts out something that shows a loss in chops, I will say so, because to do otherwise would be to degrade past achievements.

Thanks for putting up with my ramblings ...

T.

p.s. (after initial post).. Having just tested out my post, and listened to the "On Green Dolphin Street" link I have to give major props to Milt on vibes, and credit the smokin' rhythm section of Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums.

Janet is so correct!

In the last week or so we have had a doctor assassinated in his own church for acts he did that were totally legal under existing law. Moments ago, news of a multiple shooting by a right-wing extremist at the Holocaust Museum in DC just hit the Net.

Our new head of Homeland Security warned against just such right-wing extremism, but has taken immense flack for recognizing the threat, as chronicled in the following Wikipedia excerpt. A lot of people owe her an apology!

Right-wing extremism memo controversy

Napolitano was the subject of controversy after a Department of Homeland Security threat assessment report initiated during the administration of George W. Bush, entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,"^[20] was made public in April 2009. The report indicated several factors, including the election of the first black or mixed race President in the person of Barack Obama, perceived future gun control measures, illegal immigration, the economic downturn beginning in 2008, and disgruntled military veterans' possible vulnerability to recruitment efforts by extremist groups as risk factors for rightwing extremism.^[21][22]

On April 16, 2009, the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed suit against DHS on behalf of radio talk show host and political commentator Michael Savage, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Gregg Cunningham, and Iraqi War Marine veteran Kevin Murray.^[23][24] Savage stated that the document "encourages law enforcement officers throughout the nation to target and report citizens to federal officials as suspicious rightwing extremists and potential terrorists because of their political beliefs."^[25]

Napolitano made multiple apologies for any offense veterans groups had taken at the reference to veterans in the assessment, and promised to meet with those groups to discuss the issue.^[20] The Department of Homeland Security admitted a "breakdown in an internal process" by ignoring objections by the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to an unnamed portion of the document.^[26][27]

While the American Legion reportedly criticized the assessment, Glen M. Gardner Jr., the national commander of the 2.2 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, defended it generally, saying it "should have been worded differently" but served a vital purpose. "A government that does not assess internal and external security threats would be negligent of a critical public responsibility," he said in a statement.^[28]

Tom's handy TARP Quiz

Was confronted today with headline in the Chron biz pages trumpeting the news that 10 big banks were going to repay the federal bailout funds they have received, plus interest! "My," I thought, "this certainly seems out of character." So I investigated further. Now, you get to take my quiz:

The 10 big banks are just bustin' at the seams to repay the bailout funds because:

a) They deem it their patriotic duty to repay the public's money as soon as possible;

b) They want to boost the confidence and support of their shareholders;

c) They want to be free of limits on executive compensation that must remain in place as long as the bailout amounts are owed;

d) They want to avoid accruing interest that will eventually have to be paid.

I know this is really a tough one. (smirk, smirk) Good luck!

For the answer, you can read the entire Chron article.

Ciao,

~ tom

Life, death, and history...

I just pulled June 4 off my desktop History Channel daily calendar to reveal June 5: "1968: Bobby Kennedy Assassinated."

After reading the blurb, I started thinking about how the world and history would have been very different had Bobby lived and gone on to win the 1968 election.

That immediately twanged my brain to think of more immediate history. What if Al Gore had won the presidency in 2000? (He actually did, but that's another story).

I'll leave it to all of you to think about each situation, but suffice it to say that our world would be far different.

But the upshot of all of this is the clear, undeniable fact that a single person wielding the levers of power can truly change the course of history.

~ tom

Frank Rich gets to the truth...

Normally I do not simply refer you to a link with no comment. Here is an exception. Read it all -- please. We need to put immense pressure on these spineless congressional democrats!

~ tom

Kickin' back

We got up to our Tahoe/Donner place on Thursday night. Yesterday my dog and I took a four-mile hike up a little mountain nearby to where there is a privately-owned observatory. I took some pictures, but I will not be able to show them until I get home to my main computer because the card-reader on this laptop is not working.

Today, I just did the Nature Loop that starts just across the highway from our place up here. It's a little over three miles around the loop and is just beautiful even though it is in the middle of the Tahoe/Donner development. There is even an active beaver colony dam and pond along the way. Anyway, I took pictures today with the camera in my cell phone. Enjoy...

Trout Creek from the footbridge at the beginning of the Nature Loop.


The meadow at the beginning of the hike.


The Beaver Pond


Trout Creek, running below the high trail

Heading up to the mountains

We will be taking off this evening for our place at Tahoe/Donner for a long weekend. Most of the snow should be melted, so I'm looking forward to some hiking with my dog. Stand by for further posts direct from the Sierras!

~ tom

Some thoughts on torture...

My favorite class throughout my entire education (three years of law school included) was a course I took undergrad in Comparative Ethics in my political science major. It was taught by a visiting professor from India, Dr. Chari, a Hindu woman, who was brilliant, yet a great teacher to boot. Since then, I do not take these roiling debates on ethics lightly. Dr. Chari always demanded total honesty in assessing and discussing her always provocative hypotheticals. So here are two I have been mulling over...

Hypo #1: I am a terrorist who has been apprehended shortly before the scheduled implementation of an attack on US soil is to commence. I know where it is to occur and what the means of the attack will be (bomb, bio, nuclear, etc). They torture me (pick a flavor) to get this info. I would like to say that I would be tough and give them no answer or a false answer to stop the indescribable physical pain, but in keeping with Dr. Chari's dictates of total honesty, I suspect that I would fail, and give up the info, just to make the pain stop. The attack would be thwarted, and thousands of lives saved.

Hypo #2: I am a terrorist suspect who has been apprehended. I deny any affiliation, and claim (correctly) that I am a law abiding citizen. After initial torture, my minders are satisfied that I am not privy to any information about any imminent threat, so then they torture me further to get me to make a false confession that I am an active terrorist. Again, I would like to say that I would be tough and keep responding that I was an innocent person, just to stop the indescribable physical pain, but with due deference to Dr. Chari's dictates of total honesty, I suspect that I would fail, and falsely admit that I was a terrorist.

Here is where it gets interesting: The folks who are anti-torture have been leaning exclusively on the latter example, claiming that torture ALWAYS leads to false confessions or useless intelligence. I don't believe it. They completely ignore Hypo #1, because it is very inconvenient for them to acknowledge.

To me, the proper way to approach this moral exercise is to just say that we live in a society that rules out torture as a method to extract information from ANY suspect.

So my point is that getting into arguments about whether torture actually yields real results or is only used to get false confessions is the proverbial "red herring." As long as our own laws against torture (including international treaties/agreements to which we have subscribed) remain in force, who gives a flying fuck whether torture does or does not produce effective results!

~ tom

E.J. to the rescue

I have been wrestling with "past vs. present" dilemma that our President is facing. He wants desperately to actually get some serious shit done while he's at the helm (save our tanking economy, health care, reducing the deficit) , but he is being diverted by calls for him to wallow personally in the past. To me it's like he is an ER doc with a patient who is bleeding out from a gunshot wound received from another gang banger. You save the guy first, then you go after his assailant. Moreover, you, being the doc, turn it over to the police and stick with your job of seeing that your patient eventually walks out of the hospital, healed and whole.

I was thinking of how I could blog all of these thoughts, but I was having a hard time doing so. Fortunately, E.J. Dionne in his WA PO column today comes pretty close.

~ Tom

A Great B&W photo

Here is a stunning black and white photo I stumbled across today. It has got it all. Great clarity, subtle gradation, beautiful composition, and perfect focus points. Wish I had done it.

~ Tom

Headin' South

Just a note to let you know that I will be heading for Orange County tomorrow to conduct a continuing legal education (CLE) seminar that I am presenting to a bunch of attorneys down there. Then on the next day to Los Angeles for another group. Home on Friday about noon. I just finished giving the seminar in San Jose last Wednesday and Oakland on Thursday - big success.

I'll try to Twitter a bit on the trip with my Blackberry, which you can access on this blog. Look forward to those dopey cell phone photos...

Tom

Wordle

My sister-in-law Gretchen is on a roll. After turning me on to the great "Stand by Me" video, she told me about Wordle. Here is what is does.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

I tried it out by dumping in all portions of Michael Lally's South Orange Sonnets quoted from this site, and came up with this (double click to blow it up):

Wordle is lots of fun, but I also think it can produce some pretty interesting "art." You can change the fonts, color scheme, shape of the whole "cloud" and of course the text that you enter.

Try it.

~ tom